Director Raghavendra Rao, who is known for bringing out excellent commercial films, changed his way and started bringing out devotional and periodical films. His films like Manjunatha, Annamayya and Sri Ramadasu were proved runaway hits.
The audiences had kept lot of expectations on 'Pandurangadu' coming from the same director in the same technical combination with Balakrishna as the hero. Moreover, the script of the film was prepared with an inspiration from the earlier classic 'Panduranga Mahatmyam'. True to the expectations the film came out as another classic from the RK Associates banner.
Pundareeka (Balakrishna) comes from a family full of Lord Krishna devotees. But he grows up as a wayward and irresponsible youth, who whiles away his time by enjoying the girls. Being handsome, all the girls are naturally after him. Lakshmi (Sneha) is an orphan and was brought up by a priest (Balayya). Being from an orthodox family, Lakshmi also preaches Lord Krishna. Pundareeka gets fascinated to a prostitute called Amritha (Tabu) and keeps spending nights with her always. Once, Lord Krishna appears in a dream to Lakshmi and tells her that Pundareeka would be her husband. Lakshmi impresses the entire family of Pundareeka, but fails to win his heart.
After a few days, with the intervention of Lord Krishna, she could manage to marry Pundareeka. But, he disappoints Lakshmi and goes to Amritha even after tying the nuptial knot. Again, it was Lord Krishna who comes to Lakshmi's rescue and unites Pundareeka with Lakshmi. When they were leading a joyous life, Amritha's mother (Y Vijaya) hatches a plan and swindles his entire property. Due to the impact of medication by Amritha's mother, Pundareeka throws out the entire family out of house, while he too gets vacated by the former. Did Pundareeka realise his mistake? Did he meet his parents again? What happened to the marital life of Pundareeka? Did Lord Krishna gives salvation to Pundareeka? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax.
Balakrishna was at his best as far as performance. He gave an excellent performance in the role of Pundareeka, though it has negative shade for a major part of the movie. Not only as the devotee Pundareeka, but also as Lord Krishna he excelled in performing the role with equal and good ease. Though the make-up for Lord Krishna was a bit heavy (the blue shade), it was masked by the performance and the director etched the character with a touch of comedy.
Once again, the fans of Nandamuri clan, were very happy to see their favourite hero in an excellent role as Lord Krishna. Tabu was romantic in all the scenes and she appeared half-naked in almost all the scenes without saree or half-saree. But the audiences had to understand that she needed to remain like that because her character in the film was a prostitute.
Sneha continued her family girl image again in this movie.The director also projected her in a romantic way in one of the songs.
Viswanath, Balayya, Prasadbabu, Sivaparvati and Sana did justice to their respective roles.
Comedy track picturised on Sunil, Brahmanandam failed to click in any manner.
Mohanbabu made a special appearance in the film and appears only in two scenes. He proved that he was the best and right choice for the character.
Behind the screen, writer JK Bharavi did his best in rewriting the script to suit the present trend. Though there was a comment from the audiences, that there were more romantic scenes in the first half, they ought to be like that in order to prove how a man with lust turned devotional with the intervention of Lord Krishna. Even in the original, the script was almost similar and the devotional part appeared only in the last half an hour of the film alone. However, one had to
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